It began in our LinkedIn inbox.
For years, students from Pakistan and around the world found Umer and Ali on LinkedIn with the same questions: How do I get in? Should I take the scholarship or the ranking? Is this program worth the loan? Real people, big decisions, and almost no honest, firsthand guidance to turn to.
Umer and Ali answered as many as they could — on calls, over WhatsApp, late at night across time zones — because they remembered making those same decisions alone. Eventually the messages outgrew two inboxes.
So they built Passage Global: a proper platform for the guidance they wish they’d had. We’re a new company with a simple promise — the same honest, alumni-led advice that filled those inboxes, now available to every student who needs it.
Closing the gap between ambition and admission.
The distance between a talented student in Lahore and a seat at a great university is rarely about ability — it’s about access to the right guidance, and the funding to make it real. That’s the gap we exist to close.
Most agencies work for the universities. We work for you.
Commission-driven agencies are paid by schools to fill seats. We take zero money from universities — you hire us, so our only loyalty is to your admission and your funding. That independence is what lets us be candid.
- ✕Paid by universities to fill seats
- ✕Counselors who never applied themselves
- ✕Form-filling and paperwork
- ✕Promises that quietly fall short
- ✓Paid only by you — zero commissions
- ✓Top-school alumni who’ve been admitted & funded
- ✓Strategy that wins admission and funding
- ✓The honest truth, even when it’s hard
Led by people who’ve sat in your seat.
Umer Ijaz
A Gold Medalist from Lahore who went on to earn a Master's at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an MBA at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, Umer Ijaz has personally navigated the journey our clients dream of — from international applicant to a career built in the United States. After seven years as a product manager across fintech and AI at companies like Amount and Amazon, he co-founded Passage Global to give ambitious students the kind of guidance he wishes he'd had: expert, honest, and entirely on their side.
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Ali Azeem
A LUMS graduate in Accounting and Finance who earned a merit scholarship to Vanderbilt's Owen School of Management, Ali Azeem navigated the US admissions process the hard way — without a guide. Now a senior leader at Amazon with nearly a decade of experience advising at the highest levels of one of the world's most demanding companies, he co-founded Passage Global to give Pakistani students what he didn't have: a trusted expert in their corner, someone who has made the journey and knows exactly how to help others make it too.
Connect on LinkedInOne student, one offer,one funded futureat a time.
Come work with people who’ve been there.
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